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Stare at the sun

Look at the stunning results Astrophotographer Alan Friedman produced from his backyard in Buffalo, N.Y., when he put a webcam and a telescope together in front of a high-end filter.

Using a specialized hydrogen alpha filter, Friedman is able to look at the deep red end of the light spectrum and capture the action of hydrogen gas in the atmosphere of the sun using an industrial webcam.

To produce the finished images you see above, he captures video, finds the best individual frames, then merges the images together through a method called stacking. The exposure of the merged image is balanced for the prominences and the surface of the sun, and then the image is colorized.

He describes the process as really complicated because there is a huge range of brightness to account for with the sun.

Friedman, who is a greeting card publisher, pursues astrophotography in his spare time. You can see some more of Alan's work on his WEBSITE and you can listen to Alan talk about his images and see his telescope setup in this video: